


postmates

by DarknessChill



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Gen, is postmates a verb?, it's just a carrie fic, this is not a carrie redemption fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessChill/pseuds/DarknessChill
Summary: Carrie finds the CD amongst the things strewn across her father's desk when she wanders into his office one afternoon looking for him. It's nondescript, all things considered, white text on a black background in a little clear case, sitting harmlessly on top of a bundle of paper. She would think nothing of it, except that it's extremely out of character for her dad to pull out a CD, of all things.She frowns a little as she picks it up, turning it over before popping it open, taking a look at the simple black disc with the band logo on it. Tugging the CD insert out, she flips it open, and her eyes fall on her father.
Relationships: Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Carrie Wilson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 243





	postmates

Carrie finds the CD amongst the things strewn across her father's desk when she wanders into his office one afternoon looking for him. It's nondescript, all things considered, white text on a black background in a little clear case, sitting harmlessly on top of a bundle of paper. She would think nothing of it, except that it's _extremely out of character_ for her dad to pull out a _CD_ , of all things.

She frowns a little as she picks it up, turning it over before popping it open, taking a look at the simple black disc with the band logo on it. Tugging the CD insert out, she flips it open, and her eyes fall on her father.

He looks like he's close to her age in the photo, looking straight at the camera and surrounded by three _extremely familiar_ looking guys.

Her dad had made a comment once when she was younger about the band he was in as a teenager. Carrie had honestly forgotten all about it until she'd found this CD, because her dad rarely mentioned it – and when she'd pressed for information as a tiny eight year old, he'd just told her that it was in the past and to not worry about it. So, she hadn't.

But now, she's looking at a CD insert with her dad's band on it, and the three members of the band that are not her father are _Julie Molina's hologram bandmates_.

She startles out of her thoughts at the sound of the front door shutting and her dad calling out her name, and quickly shoves the insert back into the case, snapping it shut and escaping the office with it. She darts down the hall to her room and shoves it in the first purse she finds to try to hide it.

“I’m in my room, dad!” she calls back to her father when she hears her name again.

Later. Later she’ll figure out what the hell is going on.

*

Carrie's first thought is to call Nick and see what he thinks. He's a fan of Julie's stupid band – if anyone would recognize the guys on the CD insert, it's him. But no, they broke up almost a month ago and he's been acting extremely odd around her since then. (Not that she can blame him. She should really get around to apologizing one of these days.)

Her second thought is Kayla. Carrie's not blind; she's seen the secret smiles her friend has smothered when watching the bassist of Julie and the Phantoms. She knows Kayla’s a fan. But asking her will just put her friend in an uncomfortable spot, and Carrie’s not _that_ much of a jerk.

So, she goes with option 3 and shows up at the Molina house one afternoon.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since she’s been here, but last time she was crashing a party she wasn’t invited to, mostly to antagonize her ex-boyfriend. (Again, apologizing. She really needs to prioritize that.) This time, she’s on a mission, but as she walks up the path to the front door, she's hit with a sudden wave of painful nostalgia – besides gate crashing, the last time she walked across these stones she'd had Julie on one side and Julie's mother on the other, arms linked with her former best friend, and a grin on her face.

This time she's alone.

She almost goes up to the door and knocks, but she's not sure she can keep her composure if the next person she sees is Julie's dad, so she heads around to the side of the house instead, towards the studio. The doors are shut when she gets there, but she can see the lights on, and as she gets closer to the door, she can hear the telltale sounds of piano notes filtering through. Glancing around to make sure no one’s watching her, she peeks in the window and finds Julie alone at the piano, working on something.

Perfect.

She swings open the doors before she can second guess herself, startling Julie out of her concentration, and almost slams them shut behind herself as she strides towards the piano.

"Carrie? What are you _doing_ here?" Julie demands, shutting her notebook so Carrie won't see what's inside – as if she'd be looking anyway.

"Looking for answers," Carrie says, shrugging and reaching into her purse, pulling out the CD.

As soon as Julie's eyes fall on it, they widen, and Carrie can see it in her face – she knows _exactly_ what's going on.

"Care to tell me how your hologram band is somehow the same three guys that were, apparently, in a band with my _dad_ when he was a kid?" Carrie asks.

"Carrie—"

Carrie cuts Julie off. "No excuses, Molina. I want the truth," she insists.

Julie glances over at the side of the garage, like she's looking for something, and a moment later, she flips open the notebook in front of her to a folded page, turning it in Carrie's direction silently, which _does not answer her question_.

"What are you—"

"Just look," Julie interrupts. "You trusted me once, can you just trust me for five minutes?"

Carrie huffs out a sigh, looking down at the page, and finds the lyrics and key progressions to her dad's first hit on the page in front of her.

"What is this?" she asks, startling.

"It's the original draft," Julie supplies. "Written for Sunset Curve."

Carrie's eyes flick over to the CD again, and then back to the notebook as Julie reaches over and flips to another folded page, and another of her dad's hits.

"Julie, what are you telling me?" Carrie demands. "This doesn't _answer_ my question—"

"The guys are ghosts," Julie says. "The ghosts of the three members of your dad's old band that died on the night they were supposed to play the Orpheum." She flips to another notebook page, and another of her dad's songs.

Carrie pushes the notebook away from her, snatching back up the CD. " _Ghosts_ , Julie, _really_? You're trying to pull _that_?”

"Do you have another explanation for it?" Julie snaps back at her. "You're the one who came in here demanding answers – well there you are. I played _that_ CD a few weeks ago and three screaming seventeen-year-old guys who died 25 years ago appeared out of thin air."

"And your first thought was to form a _band_ with them?" Carrie says incredulously, rolling her eyes. "This was a stupid idea," she mumbles to herself, turning to leave without another word in Julie's direction, but her progress towards the door is stopped by a hand around her wrist.

"Don't touch me," Carrie snaps at her, turning back, and Julie quickly retracts her hand. "Are you going to give me a better explanation than _ghosts_?" she asks, crossing her arms.

Julie swallows, eyes flickering towards the other side of the garage again, and then she says, "Ask your dad."

"Ask him _what_?"

"Ask about the guys," Julie says. "Ask about the Orpheum. Ask what happened to them."

Carrie stares her down. "And, what, if he tells me the same information you probably _Googled_ , I should believe you?"

Julie's eyes flick over to the other side of the garage again.

"What are you _looking_ at?" Carrie snaps at her.

"Nothing." Julie shakes her head. "Ask him why he wasn't with the band when the rest of them got food poisoning," she says, looking back in her direction. "According to the guys, he stayed behind to flirt with one of the bartenders from the Orpheum, and that's the only reason he wasn't with them when they all died."

Carrie crosses her arms, resolving to Google that _particular_ piece of information when she gets home to see if it's something publicly available out there, but she has to admit that it seems like something Julie wouldn't have been able to pull off the internet. Cause of death, sure. Cause of _not dying_ with the rest of your friends?

"Fine," she finally says. "I'll ask. And when he tells me something else, I'll know you've finally snapped."

Julie sighs. "Do _you_ have a better explanation for why the members of his band are the same guys that are in _my_ band?"

Carrie slams the garage door behind her as she leaves.

*

Admittedly, she puts off asking her dad a bit. She gets home to find that he's out, having taken the _helicopter_ of all things somewhere. She rolls her eyes, postmates her dinner with his credit card, and settles down onto the couch with her salad when it arrives, flipping open her laptop to pass some time until her dad comes home.

She clicks over to YouTube, intending to check the hits on her newest video, but right there, in her recommended videos, is Julie Molina – _again_. She automatically clicks over to tell the algorithm she’s _not interested_ in videos from _Julie Molina_ , but hesitates, eyes darting over to her purse where the accursed CD is hiding. Clicking into the video instead, she skips forward until the guys are on screen and pulls the case out of her purse, laying the CD insert out across her keyboard to compare.

And _ugh_. They _definitely_ look like the same people, which means… well – means _what_ , exactly? That Julie’s telling the truth and _somehow_ she’s in a ghost band? It’s completely ridiculous. But holograms of people long dead don’t make any sense _either_. Huffing, she clicks the thumbs down on the video, slams her laptop shut, and shoves the CD insert and CD back into her purse, clicking the TV on instead to distract herself until her dad gets home and she can get some answers.

He does finally walk back in about an hour later, and Carrie shifts over to pull the CD out, but when she looks up into her father's eyes, she can immediately tell that wherever he'd been, it hadn't just been a fun helicopter jaunt. She shoves the CD further down into her purse instead, smiles and tells her dad she's fine, and lets him kiss the top of her head on his way up the stairs.

She'll ask him later.

*

She avoids Julie's eyes the next day at school, autopilots her way through a Dirty Candy rehearsal, and comes home to find her dad in better spirits - _hah_ \- on the couch.

"Hey baby," he greets. "Good day?"

She shrugs nonchalantly, fingers finding the CD in her purse. "Hey, dad, can I--"

Her dad cuts her off unknowingly, clearly not hearing her. "How was rehearsal? Sorry I haven't been able to make it to any of your performances recently - things have been crazy."

Carrie swallows, letting go of the CD and walking over to the couch, sitting down on the other side of it. "Rehearsal was fine - we're trying to come up with a new routine. You know how it is."

Her dad smiles at that. "Yeah - keep it up, you girls are doing great."

"Thanks, dad." Carrie smiles genuinely at that. "So, hey--"

Her dad's eyes fall on the clock hanging across the room and they widen suddenly. "Shit, I’m _so_ late for a phone meeting.”

Carrie shuts her mouth. "Go ahead."

"You were going to say something." He hesitates, looking back over at her with concern written all over his face.

"It's okay," Carrie assures him, shaking her head. “We can chat later.”

He nods, reaching over to give her a hug before practically running from the room for his phone meeting.

Carrie sighs, sinking back into the cushions and changing the TV channel. She'll ask him later.

*

She postmates again for dinner a couple hours later, getting them both their favorite salads and carrying them up the stairs when they arrive, balancing one on top of the other with the plastic cutlery precariously on top. Shifting her grip on the salads to one hand, she knocks on her dad's office door, calling, "Dad, can I come in?"

She hears her dad say something to the person he's on the phone with, before he calls out, "Yeah, come on in!"

Carrie pushes the door open, lifting the salads. "I ordered you dinner."

Her dad smiles at her. "Thanks, Carrie."

"Want me to just leave it here? Sorry for interrupting," Carrie says, shifting his salad off the top.

He shakes his head. "No problem. Hold on one sec." Unmuting his phone before she has a chance to respond, he speaks up. "Hey, let's finish this later, alright?"

"Trevor—" the person on the other side of the line tries to speak, but her dad cuts them off.

"Gotta go." He hangs up quickly, grinning at his daughter. "Shall we?"

Carrie bites her lip, smiling at her dad as he takes the salads from her to carry them back downstairs so they can eat and talk in the kitchen.

She's not ruining this. She'll ask him later.

*

Julie corners her in the music room the next morning, and she can't put it off any more.

"So, have you talked to him yet?" she asks, arms crossed. Carrie huffs out a sigh, and Julie takes that as the no it was intended as. "So you comes over to _my_ house, demand answers, don't believe me when I give them to you, and then refuse to verify them when I tell you exactly how to," she says, shaking her head.

"What does it matter to you if I verify your little story, anyway?" Carrie bites.

"You're the one who wanted to know, Carrie!" Julie snaps.

Carrie turns to retort, but cuts off as Ms. Harrison enters the room. "Everything okay here, girls?"

"Yeah," Julie speaks, not taking her eyes off of Carrie. "We're fine – sorry Ms. Harrison."

“Yeah, all good here,” Carrie agrees, smiling sweetly and breezing past Julie into the hallway, ignoring the call of her name from behind her, and steering clear of Nick, who’s shooting her an odd look from near his locker. She doesn’t have patience for either of those two ex-relationships right now.

*

The problem is, by this point she's pretty sure Julie's not lying. Ghosts – it’s a ridiculous concept, but Julie Molina has never been one to lie. She's never been _good_ at it, and when she tries, it usually explodes in her face. And the more time Carrie has had to let the idea sink in, the more she's put off asking her dad about it, the more the idea has seemed almost plausible.

But Julie's right - and that's the _only_ time she will _ever_ admit that, even in her own head. She needs to suck it up and talk to her dad, no matter what. So, with that in mind, she cancels Dirty Candy practice for the day, claiming a headache, and goes straight home after school. 

“Dad?” she calls out as she walks in, hanging her school bag by the door and shrugging her coat off.

“Carrie?” he asks, walking into the room, frowning at her. “You’re home early, everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Carrie promises, fingers finding the CD in her purse again. “Just… can we talk?”

“Of course, baby,” he says, nodding towards the couch. “Is everything alright?”

Carrie just nods, settling onto the couch next to her dad, purse in her lap, and takes a breath, before finally pulling the CD out.

Her father’s eyes narrow at the CD. “Where did you find that?”

“Your office,” Carrie answers honestly. “You left it on your desk – and I thought it was weird you had a CD out, so I checked it out.”

Her dad doesn’t take his eyes off the CD, and doesn’t say anything, so Carrie pushes a little harder. “This was your old band, right?” she asks.

He finally tears his eyes from the case, nodding at her. “Yeah – I… yeah.”

When he doesn’t offer any more information on his own, Carrie presses again, “They… all died?”

This time her father visibly flinches, and Carrie winces, immediately cutting in, “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s okay,” he says, voice tight. “They did. We were hours away from the biggest show of our lives and they went off and got food poisoning and...”

Carrie swallows, debating with herself – _“According to the guys, he stayed behind to flirt with one of the bartenders from the Orpheum, and that's the only reason he wasn't with them when they all died.”_

Her dad is clearly upset, still shaking a tiny bit and significantly quieter than usual. Does she really want to push him further? Does she even _care_ if Julie’s stupid ghost story is true?

She leans in close to her father’s side, and he shifts his arm around her, holding her tight to him, and kisses the top of her head.

“Sorry for pushing,” she says. “I didn’t know it was a tough subject.”

“You wouldn’t have,” her dad answers. “I don’t talk about it.”

“You could talk about the good things,” Carrie offers. “If you wanted to. But I won’t push you. Let’s watch a movie or something.”

Does she care if Julie’s ghost story is true?

No, she decides as her father flicks the TV on and she snuggles in closer to his side. No, she doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> This sort of just happened yesterday while I should have been working on touch-starved series things, but here we are. There's a lot to Carrie, I think, that we don't find out in the show, so I'm interested to see what comes in the future.


End file.
